How does my garden grow?

This year I have turned in to an avid gardener. I experimented with flowers and shrubs and sometimes veggies. This is our ' teach the kid about nature' phase. She is learning to pluck my flowers even when I guard them minutely so I guess she is learning something.

Excuses for not doing anything productive

I have never known days to fly by so fast. First there was that little toothache so i ignored it. Then the tooth decided to increase the pain and i hurried to the dentist. She very kindly informed me that i had not one but 3 bad teeth and i needed extractions and implants. So many a painkillers and antibiotics later i was finally free from the pain and the teeth. All through the past month i felt like i was living in another world where only me and my teeth exist. Thankfully i still have some time to go before i see the dentist again for implants though i am now an advertisement for 'what happens when you ignore toothache and think yourself smarter than the dentist'. I am sure she will have my case history put up as a warning for people visiting her. The kiddo initially was very sympathetic to my pain and so spared me from my task of telling her bedtime stories. As the days wore on she became quite convinced that i was putting forward the excuse of pain to avoid telling a bedtime story...which was true at certain times coz i am normally asleep before she is.

I still managed to make the Diwali a bit fun for the kid though. Now that she is 4, she will remember what we did this time. So my husband made a pretty lantern and i went traditional all the way with rangolis.

Periwinkle that adorns my home

I don't have a green thumb but this little one seems not to mind! I wish i could learn to befriend plants though! My kiddo loves flowers and she wears all sorts of flowers in her hair. 

Toddler Talk

When she came home from school yesterday I asked my daughter why her lunch box was half eaten. She looked at me seriously and said " Because of you! You should know how much food a 4 year old can eat!".

Guess i need to take lessons from her now! :)

Weekend fun!

My family and me went for a drive from Pune to Varandha ghat last Saturday. It was an impromptu picnic with last minute grabs of whatever food we could pack in ten mins. The rains have made that entire road beautiful with small rivulets and waterfalls revealing themselves in every nook and corner. The kiddo loves our 'spur of the moment' picnics and enjoyed being dunked in a waterfall too. We love doing unplanned stuff and this was one trip where we couldn't decide when to stop clicking photos. 

Corn Bhel

A yummy snack for a rainy afternoon. Very quick to put together and quicker to disappear.

Just toss some boiled corn kernels, a chopped tomato, half of a chopped onion, half cucumber chopped fine and some chat masala and salt together. Top it up with some sev and go ahead and eat. As simple as that! 

Paneer Makhani

Pratibha from The Chef and Her Kitchen is one lady whose blog i love to follow. Her recipes have been tried and tested and passed by the entire family many times. Last Sunday, after being prodded by the better half for about a week on the short lunches and shorter dinners that i serve, i decided to go for something grand. I settled on Paneer Makhani because Ira is in a paneer loving stage now. Needless to say this very clear and step by step recipe from Pratibha's blog resulted into an awesome dish. In a fir of the home godess avatar i even made the paneer at home from scratch. We finished it in no time and this is surely going to be my preference for all the future dinner parties. I don't have a picture to show you my efforts but a happy and content husband and kid who slept away all the afternoon and did nothing all evening proves it was an effort well invested.